Subject: Digby's Excellent Small Cakes?

From: [email-masked] (David Shallcross)
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 23:38:06 GMT

I'm trying to think up something to bring for a holiday party.
Does anyone have the recipe for Sir Kennelm Digby's excellent small
cakes?, or can someone tell me where to quickly find it?

David Shallcross                     [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: 22 Dec 1993 05:53:52 GMT

> David Shallcross                     [email-masked]

Excellent Small Cakes
Digby p. 221/175

Take three pound of very fine flower well dried by the fire, and put to it
a pound and a half of loaf sugar sifted in a very fine sieve and dried; 3
pounds of currants well washed, and dried in a cloth and set by the fire;
when your flour is well mixed with the sugar and currants, you must put in
it a pound and a half of unmelted butter, ten spoonfuls of cream, with the
yolks of three newlaid eggs beat with it, one nutmeg; and if you please,
three spoonfuls of sack. When you have wrought your paste well, you must
put it in a cloth, and set it in a dish before the fire, till it be through
warm. Then make them up in little cakes, and prick them full of holes; you
must bake them in a quick oven unclosed. Afterwards ice them over with
sugar. The cakes should be about the bigness of a hand breadth and thin; of
the size of the sugar cakes sold at Barnet.

Scaled down version:
3 c flour	     3/8 lb butter=1 1/2 sticks	    1/4 t nutmeg
3/4 c sugar	 2 1/2 T cream	                   2 t sack (we used sherry)
3/4 lb currants = about 2 1/2 c	           1 egg yolk

(All of this assumes that ÒspoonfulÓ = T)

Cut butter into the flour as one would for piecrust. Bake cakes about 20
minutes at 350¡. 
Icing: about 1/3 c sugar and enough water so you can spread it.
-- 
David Friedman
[email-masked]